Possession
by Jennifer Campbell
Summary: Katrina warns of a coming darkness that she alone can fight, but drawing her out of Purgatory comes with a heavy price for Ichabod and Abbie. Ichabod/Katrina and Ichabbie.
1. Chapter 1

**Story:** Possession  
**Author:** Jennifer Campbell  
**Fandom:** Sleepy Hollow  
**Rating:** PG  
**Characters:** Ichabod Crane, Abbie Mills, Katrina  
**Summary:** Katrina warns of a coming darkness that she alone can fight, but drawing her out of Purgatory comes with a heavy price for Ichabod and Abbie.  
**Disclaimer:** None of the characters belong to me.  
**Author notes:** This is the first fanfic I've written in four years, so please be kind. As this is the first chapter, it's essentially the setup. I'd love to hear your feedback.

##

The chill of Purgatory sunk into Ichabod Crane's bones, freezing his marrow to ice, which is how he knew this wasn't a dream.

Sometimes he did dream of Purgatory. It was his mind's way of coping with the strangeness of his new life. He would walk among the thick, endless winter trees with their branches like skeletal hands, bathed in mist, washed out of color, melancholy. But only in a true vision did the chill come, a cold so penetrating he felt he would never be warm again.

If this was real, then she had called him here.

And she would come for him.

He wrapped his arms around himself, huddled inside his long coat, and waited. Ichabod was not sure that he liked the command she had over his spirit, that she could summon him here at will. She was his wife, and he loved her. But a man's body, mind and soul should belong to him alone.

When she emerged from among the trees, it was as a ghost, a wraith, ethereal with her black dress, pale skin and flowing red hair. She was beautiful, and Ichabod's breath caught in his throat at the sight of her. She came closer.

"My love," she said.

"Katrina." He reached out to cup her cheek in his palm, afraid as always that his hand would go through her, but it never did because in this unreal forest, they were both spirits. Her skin was icy under his fingertips. "I miss you."

"And I you."

"Why am I here?"

"A warning," she said, "though I wish it were not so. A darkness is awakening in Sleepy Hollow."

"There is always darkness," he murmured.

"Not like this. In all your battles, you have not faced anything like this."

Her words raised bumps on his arms. Ichabod had never seen her so anxious, not since she had tended to him on what he thought was his death bed. "What is this thing?" he asked.

She took his hands in hers, their fingers entwining, while the mist swirled eddies around them. "I cannot say more. Only that it is time."

"Time for what?"

"For you to summon me into your world."

"Summon you," he whispered, taken aback. "You said once that I needed to find you to return you to the living. I haven't found you yet."

"There's another way."

Ichabod's chest tightened. For months he had wanted this, ever since he had clawed his way out of a cave and into a future absent of anything familiar or comfortable. To have Katrina back, to have his wife, was his greatest desire.

Yet he was also afraid. The fear coursed through his body like lightning, like an electric shock. He didn't understand that. Why was he afraid?

"Help me," he said. "I do not know how to accomplish this feat."

"There is a book of spells. It belonged to my order long ago. You must find it and use it before nightfall." She squeezed his hands. "You must do this, Ichabod. You will need me for this fight."

"A fight against the darkness."

"Yes."

"What darkness? Tell me."

She did not. Instead, she leaned in to kiss him lightly, her lips soft but cold, and it left his own lips tingling. "You must go now. Go and find the book."

"Katrina, I —"

"Go!" she commanded.

She released his hands and made a gesture with her arms as if to push him away. She did not touch him, and yet he felt himself thrown backward. He windmilled his arms to catch his balance, but it was too late. His boots left the ground and he was airborne, falling. He caught one glimpse of red hair and pale skin. Then the ground, blanketed in pine needles and leaves, rose up to meet him.

He jolted upright.

Heart pounding, Ichabod looked around. He was in his bed at the cabin, alone. Morning light streamed through a crack between the curtains. A loud, incessant beeping was going off somewhere near his head.

"What is that infernal noise?" he said, and then remembered. Abbie had shown him how to set the bedroom clock to wake him up at a certain time, though he did not in general understand why people needed this. He had never required such assistance before.

He picked up the small clock, which said 7:01 a.m. in glowing green numbers. He managed to find the switch to put an end to the beeping, dressed quickly and went out to the kitchen to find the communication device — the cellphone — that Abbie had acquired for him.

"Hello?" said a sleepy voice.

Ichabod felt a surge of satisfaction that he had made the device work properly on the first try. "Miss Mills."

"Crane? Do you know what time it is?"

"I am well aware of the time, and I apologize if I have awakened you, but this is urgent."

"What is it?" Abbie asked, sounding more alert.

"I have had a vision."

"You saw your wife?"

A hint of bitterness crept into her voice, as it always did when they talked about Katrina. Ichabod did not know what to make of it, and so he chose to ignore it.

"Just so," he said. "What she had to say was most worrisome. I'm afraid you must leave your bed and come fetch me. We are about to have a very busy day."

#


	2. Chapter 2

**Story:** Possession, Chapter 2  
**Author:** Jennifer Campbell  
**Fandom:** Sleepy Hollow  
**Disclaimer:** None of the characters belong to me.  
**Author notes:** Thank you for the feedback so far. I hope to be posting a chapter every couple of days, so please keep checking back for updates.

##

"What is this place?" Ichabod asked.

Abbie had parked her vehicle across the street from a building Ichabod had seen only in passing on their drives around town. In his time, this had been a church, a long, narrow building constructed of gray stone with a high steepled roof. Over the centuries since, wooden structures had been added onto all sides of the church. The end result was a strange conglomeration of past and present.

Like me, Ichabod thought.

Abbie turned the key to shut off her vehicle and twisted in her seat to look at him. She had her black hair pulled into a ponytail and wore no makeup. He liked her best this way. Relaxed and natural.

"This is the public library," she said.

"Ah," Ichabod said, pleased with her answer. "An institution of learning."

She opened her door to get out, and Ichabod did the same. The morning was cool and crisp, on the tipping point between summer and autumn. Already some leaves had changed to gold and orange.

The weather was such that Abbie had donned a black leather coat over her beige T-shirt and brown pants. She favored earth tones, Ichabod had noticed. Rarely color, and never pure white. The latter was probably a consequence of her childhood encounter with the four white trees and the demon Moloch.

Of course he had no room to criticize, as he still clung to his garb from centuries before.

They set off across the street.

"I quite like libraries," Ichabod said. "The one at Oxford was particularly impressive."

"I'm not much of a reader," Abbie said.

"Truly?" he asked and she nodded. "We must work to rectify that, Leftenant. A well-turned phrase is one of life's great pleasures."

"I prefer television."

He shook his head. "A pity."

She grinned at him. "Still, I do know that if you're looking for a book in Sleepy Hollow, this is the place to start. Though you haven't told me what we're going to do with the book once we find it."

This was true. Because of Abbie's negative responses to the subject of Katrina, he had decided to withhold that piece of information for as long as he could. He did not wish to upset her.

He had another reason, though. A more selfish one. If he gave voice to their plan, it would become real. He enjoyed his friendship with Abbie Mills, the only true and good thing he had found here. Adding Katrina to their lives would change their relationship. There was no helping for that. And he was not ready for it just yet.

Inside the double doors of the renovated church, they passed through a contraption that resembled the metal detectors at the police station. ("They make sure you've checked out your books before you leave," Abbie explained, but that made little sense to Ichabod. Why would anyone want to check a book when you could simply read it?). Beyond that was a lobby area, mostly empty of patrons at this early hour, and beyond that, the books. Tightly packed shelves that went from floor to ceiling, all the way to the back of the building.

"There must be thousands of volumes," he said. "How will we find the one we are looking for?"

"With this."

Abbie strode over to a computer and began typing. Ichabod watched with interest. He did not fully understand how these machines operated, but the world seemed to run on them now. She took a slip of paper and a pencil from beside the computer and wrote down several sequences of numbers.

"Come on," she said.

"What are those numbers for?"

"We don't have time for a lesson in the Dewey Decimal System." She checked her notes against a plaque with similar numbers posted to the end of a shelf and turned down the row of books. She ran one hand along the spines, scanning, and stopped. "These are the books about witchcraft. You look here. I'm going to check out the section on paganism. It might help if you'd tell me what specifically we're looking for?"

He smiled at her continued attempts to get more information out of him. She was very determined. "It will be an old book, filled —"

"Filled with spells. You said that before."

"And it is still true."

She sighed. "Got it."

Once she had gone, Ichabod searched through the books on witchcraft. They were mostly of the historical variety. He found one with a painting on the cover of a red-haired witch being burned at the stake. A wave of grief and loss swept over him as he thought of Katrina and how she had died.

"Anything?" Abbie asked when she returned.

He returned the book to the shelf. "Nothing useful."

"Me, neither." She flashed an encouraging smile. "No problem. We're just getting started."

But searches under Revolutionary War, American history 1700-1800, magic, occultism and fairy tales also came up empty, and Abbie's smile started to slip.

"You know," she said, leaning against a bookshelf deep in the stacks, arms folded across her chest, "this book might not exist anymore. It's been a long time —"

"No. Katrina would not send us on a fruitless chase. It must be here." He paced in front of her, thinking, tapping his fingers against his lips. "All that is kept on these shelves are books that are suitable for public usage, which a book of spells certainly would not be. If there is a collection of older and more valuable materials, perhaps the library keeps it in some other location."

She smacked her hand against her forehead. "Special collections. Of course. Let's go talk to the librarian."

Ten minutes later, they were being led down a dimly lit staircase by an older, bespectacled woman named Susan, who had become cooperative only after Abbie had displayed her badge.

"We keep the special collections in a vault down here," Susan said in a light, quavery voice. "That keeps them protected from the elements. Old books are so fragile. We don't usually allow patrons into the vault. What did you say this is for again?"

"An investigation," Abbie said curtly.

"An investigation into what? Eighteenth-century farming techniques? Instructions on how to fire a musket? Because that's the sort of thing you'll find in the vault."

"I'm sorry, but I can't tell you."

Susan clucked her tongue in disapproval.

Abbie pursed her lips, which Ichabod had come to recognize as a sign of her irritation. He wanted to reach out to her, massage the tension from her shoulders, but he sternly fought the urge.

He had experienced such inappropriate thoughts more and more as of late when it came to Miss Mills.

Instead, he leaned down to whisper in her ear, "If you wish to learn how to fire a musket, I could be of assistance in that endeavor."

Her lips twitched with amusement.

At the bottom of the stairs, a narrow passageway with stone walls branched off in two directions. The tunnel had the aura of something old, and Ichabod suspected it had been built at the same time as the church. A single, bare light bulb swung overhead, and a thin layer of dust coated the floor.

He kicked at the dust. "It appears that you do not have many visitors down here."

Susan scowled. "This way. And you" — she pointed at Ichabod — "mind your head. The ceiling gets lower."

He did find himself ducking, and feeling a touch claustrophobic, by the time they reached their destination: a metal door with a number keypad beside it. Susan pressed four of the numbers, and there was a click as the door unlocked. She pushed the door open, and Ichabod followed the two women through, relieved to be out of the tunnel.

The vault was about three meters square, white, sterile, with glass cases built into the walls that held various reading materials. Books, pamphlets, maps. A wooden table and two chairs sat at the center of the room.

"Perfect," Abbie said. "We'll take it from here."

Susan peered at them, her eyes magnified to an abnormally large size through her glasses. "I'm not supposed to leave anyone alone in the vault."

Abbie smiled coldly. "That won't be necessary, and the Sleepy Hollow Sheriff's Department thanks you for your help."

She huffed. "Be very gentle with the books. And shut the door on your way out when you're done."

When Susan had left and the door closed, Abbie threw up her arms. "Oh, I wanted to strangle that woman."

"I'm not sure deadly force would have been appropriate," Ichabod said, then added, "But I do understand the sentiment."

She shrugged out of her leather coat, tossed it across the back of a chair and surveyed the glass cases. "We've hit the jackpot."

"If by that you mean that we might find the book here, I think you are correct." He removed his coat as well and laid it on the table. "I suggest we start over there." He pointed to a case of books across from the door. "We can proceed around the room in opposite directions and meet on the other side."

They worked steadily for an hour in comfortable silence. Once, Ichabod came across a pamphlet he thought might have belonged to him, a treatise on American politics during the war. Just when his stomach's growls were becoming distracting enough that he was about to suggest they break for lunch, Abbie called out behind him.

"Crane. Come look at this."

She set a heavy volume on the table with a thump. Ichabod went to join her. The cover of the book she had found was tan leather, with a symbol in the center that resembled a sunburst.

"I know that symbol," Abbie said, excited. "It's the same one that's on your Bible, right?"

"Yes it is."

He grazed his hand over the sunburst, his fingertips tingling. Was this the key to Katrina's return? He hoped that it was. But at the same time, the irrational fear he had felt before in Purgatory returned, stronger than ever. It set his hands to shaking as he slowly, carefully opened to the first page. The parchment was thick and yellowed, curling at the corners, but the handwritten words in black ink were as clear as the day they had been inscribed, some in English and some in Latin.

Abbie leaned in to look. He became intently aware of how close her body was to his, their forearms touching, but she seemed completely unaware of how she was affecting him.

"A spell to cure the pox," Abbie read. She looked over at him, brown eyes wide. "This has to be it."

"Perhaps."

"Come on, a really old book of spells that just happens to have that symbol —"

"There's only one way to know for sure," he said, and that was if the book contained the spell Katrina had sent him to find. He sat in one of the chairs, too small for his lank, lean frame, and thumbed through the pages one by one. When he found it, he thumped the table with both fists in triumph. "Here. This one."

Abbie came around behind him and peered over his shoulder. "A spell to resurrect the dead," she read, and now Ichabod heard fear in her voice instead of excitement. "Are you serious?"

Her incredulity made him wince, and he knew he could no longer keep her ignorant of what they had to do. He turned to face her. From the expectant look she gave him in return, she clearly agreed with his assessment.

He took a deep breath and plunged into the explanation. "When I saw Katrina in my vision, she told me of a darkness about to descend on Sleepy Hollow. A darkness we cannot fight by ourselves. She said we will need her help."

Her eyes widened further. "Katrina? We're going to resurrect Katrina? Your dead wife?"

"Yes," he said and waited.

Abbie moistened her lips. Ichabod could read the emotions that crossed her expressive face like an open book. Shock, anger, panic, then resignation.

"All right," she said finally. "She hasn't steered us wrong yet. But did you read the whole spell?" She pointed to the bottom of the page, the last line of instruction. "Look what it says."

He did, and his stomach dropped. "The vessel must act in full knowledge and cooperation, welcoming in the spirit of his own free will," he read.

"The vessel," Abbie repeated. She sat heavily in the chair across from him, her eyes flicking from him to the book and back again. "This isn't a spell of resurrection, Crane. It's a spell of possession. And your wife? She's going to need a body."

#


	3. Chapter 3

**Story:** Possession, Chapter 3  
**Author:** Jennifer Campbell  
**Fandom:** Sleepy Hollow  
**Disclaimer:** None of the characters belong to me.  
**Author notes:** Thank you again for the feedback, and I would love to hear more. I hate to beg, but I will say that your comments are my only to know whether this story is being well-received.

##

After finishing at the library, they returned to the cabin to discuss their options. Already outside the windows, the shadows of trees had grown long. Ichabod mused that if they were at the height of summer, they would have another hour or two to prepare before nightfall, but these shorter days played to their enemy's advantage.

Winter was the season for evil.

Abbie rummaged around the kitchen, making coffee. Its rich, heady smell filled the cabin. The beverage wasn't identical to what had been served under the same name in his time, but he had grown fond of the present-day version. Soon, they settled in at the kitchen table with their mugs, and that was when Abbie sprang her intentions on him.

"No," Ichabod said. "Absolutely not. I forbid it."

Abbie gave a long-suffering sigh, as if she knew that would be his answer. "We don't have another option."

"There is always another way," Ichabod shot back. "You taught me that."

"Apparently I didn't teach you that using my own words against me is a dirty trick." Her expression turned exasperated. "Look, Crane. It's three hours until sunset. Katrina needs a body before then, and I don't see a lot of volunteers lining up for the job."

He leaned back in his chair, thinking. "Jenny …"

"I thought about that. But we don't have enough time to get a furlough approved and go pick her up. Even then, how could I ask my own sister to agree to be possessed by the spirit of an 18th century witch?"

"Then I will offer my own body," he said, though he would have preferred the situation not come to that.

Abbie snorted. "Yeah, that would work."

"Was that sarcasm?"

She leaned across the table toward him, coffee mug clutched between her hands like some kind of anchor. "You can't be the vessel. You need to be here for Katrina. It has to be me, and if you'd stop being so damn stubborn, you'd see that it's the only way."

"Maybe," he said grudgingly. "I don't like it."

"Neither do I, but I'll be fine. It's just temporary. You and Katrina find a way to defeat this darkness, she gives my body back in the morning, and we keep searching for her grave or her ashes or whatever it is we need to bring her back permanently."

Ichabod frowned and sipped his coffee, burning his mouth and leaving a molten trail down his throat. He did not want Abbie to risk herself in this way, but also this solution would prove truly confusing for him personally. He cared for Abbie. He couldn't deny that. How deep his feelings went, he did not know. But one thing was certain: putting his beloved wife's spirit inside Abbie's body was guaranteed to complicate the matter.

Abbie reached across the table to lay her hand on his. "It's for the greater good. That's what we do, right? Serve the greater good."

He crooked a smile. "Now you are using my words against me."

"Damn straight."

After several more seconds, Ichabod nodded, reluctantly. "You are right," he said. "But I don't want you to get hurt."

She squeezed his hand. He remembered that not long ago in Purgatory, Katrina had done the same.

"You remember the spell?" Abbie asked, because Susan the librarian's tolerance for leaving them unattended in the vault had not extended to them taking materials out of it.

Ichabod tapped his forehead. "It is all here."

"Then let's get to work."

#

Ichabod wrote the last word of the spell on the sheet of lined paper that Abbie had found for him, then slid the paper across the table to his partner. She studied what he had written, while he studied her. She was tense again, the muscles bunching in her shoulders. As if subconsciously aware of his scrutiny, she slowly rolled her neck while she read.

"This is all English," she said, "but in the book, some of the spell was written in another language."

"Yes, the instructions were in English, but the incantation you must speak was transcribed in Latin. However, seeing as you don't speak Latin …" He stopped himself. "You don't, do you?"

"Nope."

"Well, in that case, it seemed wise to translate."

The look she gave him was appraising. "You are something else, you know that? But won't changing the words mess up the spell?"

"I don't believe so. The intent of what you are saying is more important than the language in which you say it."

"Well, then."

Abbie stood and stretched her arms high over her head, then rolled her neck again and rubbed her hands together. She was preparing herself, Ichabod realized.

"Are you ready?" he asked.

"Actually," she said quietly, barely above a whisper, "I'm scared to death." Her voice trembled. It was the first vulnerability she had shown since she had volunteered.

Ichabod didn't hold back this time. He stepped around the kitchen table and enfolded her in his arms, this tiny woman with the heart of a lion. She sighed and laid her head against his chest. She felt as warm in his embrace as Katrina did cold.

"You are very brave," Ichabod murmured.

Silent laughter shook through her body. "I don't feel like it."

"Bravery is doing what you must even when every fiber of your being is telling you to run away. It is facing your fears." With one hand, he smoothed her hair, which smelled pleasantly of vanilla. "Katrina will not allow anything to hurt you, and neither will I."

"I know." Abbie drew away from him and wiped her eyes. "The sun will be down soon. It's now or never."

They found a salt container in a kitchen cabinet. Abbie stood in the center of the living room, the paper with the incantation on it clutched in one hand, while Ichabod poured a wide circle of salt on the rug around her. When he finished, he stood outside the circle, and she looked so very alone on the inside.

"Close your eyes," he instructed, and she did. "Now think about Katrina. Think about what she looks like, her voice, everything I have ever told you about her. Do you see her? Yes? Good. Now keep that firmly in your mind, open your eyes, and read the incantation. No matter what, do not stop until you have reached the end."

She breathed deep, and her lips began to move, but her voice did not rise above a whisper. Too quiet for Ichabod to hear. Then he would not have been unable to hear her even if she had been shouting.

An unnatural wind rose up around him. He stumbled at its force, almost blown off his feet. His hair whipped around his face while the wind wailed like the agonized screams of a thousand thousand spirits. The cabin walls shook. Dust from the rafters came down on him in a fine mist. Paintings and photos rattled and crashed to the floor.

He looked up at Abbie, fearful for her safety. Yet within the line of salt, she remained untouched. The wind battered against her circle but could not enter. Her eyes were wide and frightened at what was going on around her, but her lips still formed the words of the spell.

Then it was over.

The wind abruptly stopped. Abbie crumpled to the floor, the paper falling away from her limp hand. All was silent again, except for Ichabod's ragged breathing and the pounding of his blood in his ears.

He stumbled forward, breaking the circle with his boot, and knelt beside Abbie, gathering her into his arms. "Miss Mills. Can you hear me? Abbie?"

Her eyes fluttered open. "Ichabod?"

The tenor of her voice had changed. Softer, more resonant. He knew that voice, and small sob escaped his lips.

"Katrina?"

"Oh, Ichabod."

She threw her arms around him. Her mouth found his, and they were kissing, desperately. When they parted, he laid his forehead against hers, unwilling to break contact.

"I cannot believe you are here," he said, and then thought of something else. "Where is Abbie? Is she in there with you?"

"No, she is not."

They pulled apart enough to look at each other.

"Then where is she?" Ichabod asked.

#

The first thing Abbie saw were branches, bare and brown, reaching down toward her like claws. It took her a moment to realize she was on her back on the ground, looking up. Slowly, shakily she got to her feet. One second, she had been inside the circle, reading the spell, panicking while Ichabod got battered by a crazy, supernatural wind that was blowing the cabin apart around them, and now she was here. In a quiet forest clearing obscured by mist.

It was cold. Beyond cold. A cold that penetrated her skin and froze her down to her bones.

In the branches high above, a crow called out, startling her. _Kaw-kaw_, it said, spread its black wings and soared away, disappearing into the mist.

Abbie knew where she was.

And it wasn't good.

"Oh, shit," she said.

#


	4. Chapter 4

**Story:** Possession, Chapter 4  
**Author:** Jennifer Campbell  
**Fandom:** Sleepy Hollow  
**Disclaimer:** None of the characters belong to me.  
**Author notes:** Thanks for the feedback, everyone. You're fantastic! I hope you continue to enjoy reading this story as much as I enjoy writing it.

##

"Where is Leftenant Mills?" Ichabod asked.

They lay sprawled in the broken circle of salt on the living room floor, their arms still loosely wrapped around each other. Ichabod looked Katrina solidly in the eyes, except they weren't Katrina's eyes. They were Abbie's. Along with Abbie's hair. Her cheekbones. Her mouth and lips. Only moments ago, he had been kissing those lips, not anything like Katrina's, no matter whose spirit was currently occupying the body.

He wanted to kiss those lips again, but he could not allow himself the indulgence. The confusion of emotions inside him was becoming dangerous much more quickly than he had anticipated it would.

Katrina looked down, no longer meeting his insistent gaze. "I don't know for sure."

"But you think you know?" he pressed.

She nodded. "I believe that our spirits have switched places."

Ichabod hissed in air between his teeth. "You mean to say that Leftenant Mills is in Purgatory?"

"Yes. And she does not have my magic to hide and protect her. I fear that her power of witness will draw the eye of Moloch to her quickly. And when he finds her, he will do everything he can to destroy her."

Ichabod stood and wiped the salt from his pants and coat. "Then we have no time to lose." He held out his hand, which she took, and he helped her to her feet. "What is it that we are fighting?"

"Darkness," Katrina said.

"I do not understand. What darkness?"

"Let me ask you something. When do the Horseman and his brethren ride?"

"At night, of course. They flee with the rising of the sun."

"What if the sunrise never came?"

As he looked down at her, he began to feel that he knew where she going with this, and he did not like it at all. "Then there would be no way to stop them. No respite. They could ride whenever they wished and rain down their destruction until the End of Days."

"That is what we are facing."

"But how?"

She licked her lips, a gesture of Abbie's that was so familiar it sent a pang through Ichabod. "In our time, there were two covens. One good and one evil. The last of my coven is only recently dead, beheaded by the Horseman, but there remains a remnant of the other. Tonight, they will cast the darkest of magic. If we do not stop them before the sunrise, Sleepy Hollow will remain shrouded in unnatural night forever."

She took his hands. "This is not a battle that can be won with a gun or a sword. We must fight magic with magic. Look."

She pointed to the open windows that overlooked the lake. The sun was sinking below the tree line, sending out its last rays to dimly illuminate the calm waters. But that was not what Katrina had drawn his attention to. Farther to the south, toward town, a blackness was creeping across the sky, obscuring the moon and the first stars of evening.

Katrina walked to the window, with Ichabod behind her. Her voice was quiet but commanding. "It has started. The darkness is coming."

#

Abbie followed the crow.

She didn't expect the bird to lead her anywhere good. There was no such thing as _good_ in Purgatory. The demon Moloch ruled here; this was his kingdom and now she was in it. Everything felt hostile. The trees that seemed to reach out for her with their knotted, crooked branches. The mist so thick that she couldn't see more than a few feet in any direction. The layer of old leaves and pine needles on the ground that hid hazards like rocks and tree roots and who knew what else.

The cold. The terrible, terrible cold.

She caught sight of the crow hopping across a gnarled branch. _Kaw-kaw_, it said and fluttered off again in a blur of black feathers.

She licked her dry lips. "Crane?"

It was a long shot, but maybe he could hear her. They shared a strong connection. If she was lucky, he might sense her across worlds.

"Crane?" she yelled again. "Katrina? Anyone?"

She wrapped her arms around herself. What she wouldn't give for a cup of hot chocolate right now. Or steaming coffee. Or a coat.

Why the hell had she volunteered for this?

"Hello," said a small voice behind her.

She whirled around. It wasn't Ichabod or Katrina. A girl stood beside the trunk of a tree that was wider than she was. She was black, with her dark hair in pigtails, and she wore a school uniform with a jacket and plaid skirt.

Abbie trembled. Backed up a step. Her hand went to the holster at her hip. "You're not real."

The girl cocked her head to one side. "Why not?"

"Because you're me."

"How does that make me not real?" the girl asked. While Abbie tried to think of a rational response, the girl laughed suddenly and pointed straight at Abbie. "You aren't worthy of his love. You aren't worthy of anyone's love."

She wanted to back up another step, but her boots had frozen to the ground. She couldn't move. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Yes, you do." The girl laughed again and ran up to Abbie, skipped in a circle around her, pigtails bouncing. "You and Jenny made a promise. To always look out for each other. To stand by each other. But when you were tested, you betrayed her to save yourself. And _he_ knows. He knows what you did. You don't deserve his love."

Abbie's anger rose, but more than that, fear. The same fear that she had buried so deeply inside herself that they had become an inseparable part of her soul. Hearing it out loud ripped open her guilt all over again. It was intolerable. Agony.

"Shut up," she said to the girl.

"He doesn't love you," the girl singsonged as she skipped around Abbie. "He doesn't love you."

"Shut up, shut up!"

The girl laughed and skipped away, fading into the mist, and Abbie found that she could move again.

She ran.

From the girl and from herself.

She ran and ran for what felt like hours, through the trees and mist, until her lungs burned and her heart thudded in her chest, until her legs felt like rubber and a painful stitch developed in her side.

It ended when she took a bad step and stumbled over something hidden under the ground cover. She pitched forward, arms flailing, and landed hard on the forest floor, the wind knocked out of her. For a few moments, she just lay there. The thought crossed her mind that she could lay there forever.

_Kaw-kaw_.

The crow jeered at her from the branches above.

"Go away," she said.

She didn't need its ridicule.

She had enough of her own.

Boots stepped into her field of vision, inches from her nose. Heavy, brown, scuffed with hard use. She followed them up to a pair of brown trousers, and higher up still to a blue long coat. Ichabod smiled down at her. For the first time since she had landed in Purgatory, Abbie felt a spark of hope.

"Crane. Thank God. What took you so long?"

She scrambled to her feet and reached out to embrace him, desperate for comfort and human touch, but her arms went right through him. Where Ichabod stood, there was only air. He continued to smile at her, but she saw now the smile did not reach his eyes.

"You're not Crane," Abbie said.

"Am I not?" he asked.

"What the hell is going on here?"

"I came to thank you, Miss Mills."

She glared suspiciously. "Thank me for what?"

"For generously giving up your body to Katrina. I'm with her now. My wife. My beloved. After 250 years apart, you can imagine that it's been quite the reunion."

Something fluttered in her chest like a nest of moths. It was making it difficult to breathe. She put her hands to her chest and choked out, "Why are you telling me this?"

"Because I want you to know that your sacrifice has not been in vain. Katrina has so much more to offer in the fight against evil. She is a powerful witch. What do you have, Miss Mills? A gun and a badge? That hardly compares. It's like fighting off an angry bear with a stick."

She was crying now. Tears streaming down her cheeks. "I can't listen to this," she said. "The real Ichabod would never say these things."

"But it is the truth."

Abbie turned and started to run again.

Ichabod's voice chased after her. "You cannot escape from the truth, Miss Mills."

Her legs were exhausted. She stumbled rather than ran. When she could no longer see or hear Ichabod — or whatever it was that had taken his form — she stopped to rest against a tree. She pressed her forehead to the cold, rough trunk and closed her eyes. This place wasn't Purgatory. It was hell. And her sins would track her and torment her no matter where she ran.

Through her closed lids, she sensed a light.

She groaned.

"No more," she said. "Please no more."

But she opened her eyes to look.

She had stopped in a clearing. Perhaps the same one she had started in. Except what lay on the other side of it had not been there before.

Four white trees.

Abbie couldn't take her eyes off them. She suddenly felt like a child again, with Jenny, finding something in the woods that they should never have found. She stood frozen in terror. Total, absolute, uncontrollable. She was drowning in it, choking, unable to breathe.

A deep voice echoed through the forest, saying the same word over and over. Abbie fell to her knees and pressed her hands to her ears to shut it out, but she couldn't.

"Witness," it hissed. "Witnesssss …"

#


	5. Chapter 5

**Story:** Possession, Chapter 5  
**Author:** Jennifer Campbell  
**Fandom:** Sleepy Hollow  
**Disclaimer:** None of the characters belong to me.

##

Ichabod led Katrina outside to Abbie's vehicle. Normally he sat in the passenger seat while Abbie operated the large, gray beast, but not today. Despite the fact that Katrina was currently occupying Abbie's body, she had not retained any of Abbie's knowledge or skills. So Ichabod unlocked the vehicle and slid into the driver's seat.

He put both hands on the steering wheel. On the panel beneath it were several instruments marked with numbers and symbols, none of which meant a thing to him. The viewpoint looked different from this seat, which defied logic, because he had moved only three feet to the left.

Through the windshield, he could see the darkness creeping over the town. Like spilled ink pooling across a desk; a blanket of fog rolling in off the ocean. Only this darkness would never lift, unless he and Katrina were able to stop it.

"Can you operate this machine?" Katrina asked with Abbie's voice, except it wasn't. Katrina's rhythm of speech was slower, quieter.

She sat gingerly in the passenger seat and followed Ichabod's lead in pulling shut her door and fastening her seat belt. Ichabod marveled at the strangeness of their circumstance. It was Abbie who was supposed to teach him about this technological world, not the other way around.

"Can you find the coven?" he asked in return.

"Yes. I feel the source of their magic."

He grinned. "A supernatural GPS."

"A what?"

"Nothing. It is something that Leftenant Mills explained to me," he said, and wished Abbie were here to share in his joke. He slid the vehicle's key into the slot on the steering wheel. "I have watched Miss Mills drive many times, and I once read the instruction pamphlet while I waited for her to return to the vehicle. I do believe I understand the basic concept."

He turned the key while pushing down the leftmost pedal to the floor with his foot. The vehicle roared. Ichabod immediately took his foot off the pedal, and the roaring subsided to a gentle rumble.

"I don't like this," Katrina said.

"It will be fine," he assured her. "But I apparently must be more careful with the pressure I apply to the foot pedals." He pulled down the gear shift into the drive position, which he had seen Abbie do many times, and applied a light touch to the gas pedal. The vehicle rolled forward. "Ah. You see. Nothing to it."

He steered them down the dirt road. Tall pine trees closed in on either side. At first he drove at a pace no faster than a brisk walk, but then, as he began to feel more confident, he slowly brought up the speed — though not nearly as fast as Abbie liked to drive. Her captain had once called her a speed demon, which they had both found highly amusing, considering they knew what a real demon was like.

Ichabod sorely wished she were with him now. He did not feel right going into battle without her, while she was fighting a different battle without him. He should be by her side, wherever she was. They should be together.

Katrina interrupted his thoughts. "You are thinking about your partner," she said, not a question but a statement of fact. Ichabod had never been able to keep a secret from his very intuitive wife, not since the first time they had met, when she had looked in his eyes and saw him for who he really was.

"Yes," he said.

"You care for her."

Another statement of fact. Ichabod's hands tightened on the wheel. This was not the ideal time for this conversation, while on their way to fight witches, but he realized — and perhaps Katrina did, too — that they might not have another opportunity. He stopped the vehicle and turned to face her.

"I am sorry," he said.

Katrina smiled sadly. "There is no need."

"There is. You are my wife."

"And with her, you share a bond that is unique in the whole history of the world. I knew when we met that I was not the one intended for you, but still I was selfish. I could not stop myself from wanting you."

"And I you," Ichabod said earnestly. "I made you a promise —"

"I release you from it."

"No." He shook his head. "Only God can do that."

The pity, love and understanding in her eyes — Abbie's eyes — was too much to bear. He dropped his gaze to his lap. Katrina had seen in his heart what he had been too ashamed to admit to himself. He was in love with Abbie. And yet he had never stopped loving his wife. How had he found himself in such an impossible situation?

Katrina reached across the chasm between them to graze her fingertips down his cheek. "I want you to be happy."

"I will find you," he said, "and bring you back to life in your own body. We will be together again, and that will make me happy." He wanted to mean every word, and yet he felt doubt.

Katrina seemed to sense his unease.

"Will it?" she said. "I wonder."

A shadow crossed her face. They both looked out. The spread of the darkness had reached them now, and Ichabod could no longer see the sky.

"We must go," Katrina said.

Without another word, because he did not know what to say that would not hurt her more than he already had, he yanked the gear shift back into drive and continued on toward town.

#

Four white trees.

Abbie had seen them twice before. Once as a child with Jenny in the woods — the moment when she realized, despite her later denials to others and to herself — that another, darker world existed beneath the surface of their own. And once inside a mirror in a jail cell, on the day she accepted that what she had seen as a child had been real and that she had a destiny.

Both of those times, a creature had appeared along with the trees. A demon. The embodiment of evil. A lanky, limping, gnarled thing with crooked horns and skin leached of color, as if the sun itself had rejected him.

Moloch.

Now her spirit was trapped in Moloch's realm. The trees had appeared for a third time, and the demon was coming.

"Witness," he hissed. His deep voice came from everywhere at once. From under the ground covered with dry and rotting leaves, and from the perpetually bare treetops shrouded in mist. "Witness …"

Abbie huddled at the base of a tree, its rough bark scratching her back through her thin T-shirt, her hands pressed to her ears. She could not block out the horrible booming voice.

"Why are you here?" the demon asked.

Abbie searched the clearing but could not see him. "That's none of your business," she yelled, trying her best to sound unaffected and not scared out of her wits.

"Where is the witch?" Moloch asked.

She stopped. The question gave her pause.

"The what?" she said.

"Where is the witch?" Moloch demanded, more harshly this time. "Where is she?"

Abbie she slowly lowered her hands from her ears. If Moloch didn't know where Katrina had gone or how Abbie had gotten here, then he wasn't as all-powerful as she and Ichabod had thought. And if he wasn't all-powerful, that meant she had a shot — only a sliver of one, granted — at getting out of this mess in one piece.

Suddenly she heard Ichabod in her mind as clearly as if he were whispering in her ear. _Bravery is doing what you must even when every fiber of your being is telling you to run away,_ he said. _It is facing your fears._

Her cheeks heated with anger and shame. Since she had awoken here, she had done nothing but run. She had let her fears rule her actions.

Some police officer she was. She was glad that neither Jenny nor Ichabod had been here to see.

"Bravery," she said under her breath. "All right, Crane. I'll try it your way."

She rose to her feet, using the tree trunk at her back for support. She would feel braver with Ichabod beside her, but he had his own battle to fight. This one was hers.

"It's your damn kingdom," she spat back at the demon. "You don't know where the witch is? Figure it out yourself because I sure as hell won't tell you."

Moloch growled.

The ground shuddered under her feet.

"Crap," she said and steadied herself against her tree. She might have gone too far in goading the powerful, murderous demon on his home turf.

"You will pay for that," said the voice.

A contorted figure, pale and bent, rose up in front of the white trees, just it had all those years before, as it had in her nightmares on so many nights since.

Abbie caught her breath. Her blood rushed to her head, making her dizzy. Every instinct told her to flee. To get the hell out of there. Run. _Now._

Instead, she drew her gun and aimed at Moloch.

"Don't come any closer," she said.

Moloch laughed. He was blurred around the edges and difficult to make out, like he was not quite _there_. "Do you think that toy will help you?"

He gestured with one hand like Abbie would if she were shooing away a fly. Her gun ripped out of her hand and soared across the clearing. She didn't see where it landed but heard it hit the ground with a soft thump.

The urge to run got worse.

But that's what Moloch wanted. To break her. To see her defeated.

_Fight it_, she thought. _Fight, damn it._

"You are mine," he hissed.

"I don't think so."

"You are trapped. You cannot escape."

"Why would I want to escape?" She took a step forward, feeling more confident with every second she still stood here. If he had intended to kill her, he would have already, instead of trash talking. "I am not a little girl anymore, and I'm not going to run. I am a witness, chosen to fight evil and stop the apocalypse. And right now, I am going to bear witness against your ass."

She looked down. In her hands, she held a long-handed ax with a wicked half-moon blade. Where the weapon had come from, she had no clue. There had been no ax on the ground, and even then she hadn't stopped to pick anything up. Yet here it was, in her hands, and she knew just what to do with it.

Seeing the weapon, the blurry not-quite-there shape of Moloch began to hobble backward until he stood framed between two of his damned white trees.

Abbie almost crowed with victory. The ax! He was frightened of the ax! She gripped the handle and held up the blade so that the demon could get a good, long look at it. Then she bared her teeth at him and growled, "Now it's your turn to run."

#


	6. Chapter 6

**Story:** Possession, Chapter 6  
**Author:** Jennifer Campbell  
**Fandom:** Sleepy Hollow  
**Disclaimer:** None of the characters belong to me.

##

"This is the place," Katrina said.

She pointed to a house across from where Ichabod had parked. Trees shaded the narrow street, lined with houses on both sides. He couldn't see much of those houses, though. The darkness that Katrina had foretold had blanketed the city too thickly to see much of anything. Even the lights generated by electrical energy had gone out, including the ones that illuminated the streets and radiated out from the front of Abbie's vehicle.

That had made operating the gray beast more of a challenge than it already had been. One of the headlights had met an unfortunate end thanks to a tree, and Ichabod had scraped the left-side doors against a metal post topped with a traffic sign.

Though the darkness did not help matters, he could not discount the possibility that his inexperience behind the wheel might have had something to do with the collisions, as well. He hoped Abbie would forgive him for the now less-than-pristine state of her vehicle.

From inside Abbie's body, Katrina glanced sidelong at him. "This city is unfamiliar to me now. Is there a reason the coven chose this place?"

Ichabod nodded. "If I am not mistaken —"

"And you never are."

He grinned at her. The quip felt more like Abbie's style than Katrina's. "This house lies at the exact geographic center of Sleepy Hollow."

"But the house appears empty."

She was right. The windows of some neighboring houses glowed with flickering candlelight — the only available kind with electrical lights snuffed out by the coven's spell. But on the house Katrina had pointed to, the two wide windows on either side of the front door were dark.

"Perhaps they are not above ground," Ichabod said. "Are you ready?"

She smiled weakly. "Yes."

Sensing her unease, he leaned across to kiss her. Her lips parted under his. He closed his eyes and tried to feel Katrina on the other side of the kiss. Katrina's lips and body that had warmed him and his bed what felt like ages ago. But his hand in her hair noted the different texture, and she smelled of the vanilla-scented soap that Abbie used when she bathed.

Katrina had said she accepted his feelings for his partner — a generous and loving gesture — but Ichabod was not sure he could accept them himself.

He murmured, "You will do wonderfully, and I will do my utmost to keep you safe."

"I know you will, my love," she said and gave him one last swift kiss before turning to her door. "How do I open this?"

Ichabod helped her out and they crossed the street, up the sidewalk to the front door. He tried the knob. As he expected, it did not turn. Their next act usually would be for Abbie to employ the illicit skills from her past to gain them entrance, but of course Katrina would not know how to pick a lock.

"Stand back," she said.

He did, curious as to what she intended.

She took the knob in both hands. "_Recludo_."

The lock clicked. Katrina turned the knob, and the door swung open.

"How very helpful," Ichabod said.

She flashed a quick smile.

They went in. Inside the front room, Ichabod could make out the dark shapes of couches and chairs, stairs going up at their left, and an open doorway straight ahead. He drew his revolver. (These modern guns that could shoot multiple bullets before they required reloading were one aspect of this strange era that Ichabod liked.) He led the way through the doorway and into a kitchen area.

Someone groaned.

"Who is there?" Ichabod asked.

Katrina stepped up beside him and held out her open hand. A ball of light, comparable in size to a baseball, appeared, floating, above her palm.

Ichabod blinked at the sudden illumination. "You could have done that before."

"I didn't want to draw attention."

More groans. At the kitchen table, they could now see two people — a man and a woman — tied to their chairs. They each had some kind of silvery fabric over their mouths. Ichabod hurriedly strode over. They were both middle-aged, touches of gray in their hair. Over their bound mouths, their eyes were wide. The man struggled against the rope that looped across his chest and arms, and around the back of the chair.

Ichabod holstered his gun.

"Don't worry, we are here to help," he said and then, with a flash of inspiration, added, "We are with the police." He gently pulled back the fabric from the man's mouth, while Katrina assisted the woman. Her ball of light floated to the ceiling to better illuminate the whole room.

"Who has done this to you?" Ichabod asked.

The man opened and closed his mouth like a fish. His eyes darted nervously to the free-floating miniature sun above their heads. He said, "Three men and one woman."

"Where are they?"

"The basement. There." He jerked his chin toward a closed door across from a bank of cabinets and appliances.

Ichabod fetched a knife from the kitchen and used it to cut the ropes. "You must both leave now, for your own safety. I'm afraid your house resides at a confluence for dark, mystical forces."

The man gaped. "What?"

"If I were you," Ichabod told him, "I would find a new place to live."

The man wrapped an arm around his wife, who appeared too incapacitated with fear to move on her own, and guided her toward the front door.

After they had gone, Ichabod said, "We have likely lost the element of surprise. Whoever is in the basement must have heard us."

"And sensed my magic," Katrina added with a pointed look at her glowing ball of light.

Once again he drew his gun. "It would be improper of us not to go down and say hello. I would generally defer to the custom of 'ladies first,' but in this case …"

Katrina gestured that he should lead the way. With heart pounding, he closed his hand over the knob, turned and opened the door.

#

Ichabod expected the basement to be dark. It wasn't. A blinding white light radiated up the stairs. He ran down toward it, taking the steps two at a time, his gun in hand.

The basement walls were plastered with flower-printed paper. There were two couches upholstered in a similarly garish pattern. And three men and one woman sat in a circle on the floor. Ichabod thought he might recognize one or more of them, but he did not. They were huddled together around a cauldron of some kind.

The cauldron glowed white hot.

It was the source of the light.

One of the men looked up, his eyes filled with the same inky blackness that had spilled out across the city. He raised his hand.

"Ichabod, look out!" Katrina yelled behind him.

He ducked and dove to the left of the stairwell. There was a hissing noise, and a ball of molten red fire shot through the place where his head had been a half-second before. Ichabod felt its heat. Where it hit the wall was a now smoking hole the size of his fist.

"Katrina!" he yelled.

Unscathed, she jumped down the last step and to the right, so they stood on opposite sides of the stairs. Ichabod allowed himself a sigh of relief. Thank goodness for Abbie's strength and dexterity because he had never seen his wife move so fast.

The coven members scrambled to their feet.

"Keep them busy," Katrina said. She flung her arm wide and a glass vase on a corner table took flight. It smashed into one of the men, and he stumbled.

Ichabod aimed his revolver and fired, while at the same time ducking another fireball. The man he had shot at yelped and clutched his shoulder. Blood soaked his shirt.

"What must we do?" he said.

"Get the cauldron."

Another fireball. It exploded into one of the couches. The hideous flower-patterned fabric burst into flames. Smoke started to fill the room. Ichabod used its cover to slide along the wall.

"Should I shoot it?" he said.

"No!" Katrina yelled from somewhere to his right. "That is all the light from Sleepy Hollow. Destroy it and we'll never get the light back."

"Got it."

The other couch was on fire now, too. The room became masked in smoke. Ichabod held the lapel of his coat over his nose and mouth. His lungs burned. His eyes stung and watered.

He aimed with his revolver but didn't pull the trigger. He could make out shapes but not who they were, and he would not risk shooting Abbie. Granted, it was Katrina who currently resided in that body, but his wife was only a visiting spirit (he felt a pang as he thought of that), and it would be Abbie who would suffer.

Footsteps pounded up the stairs. Was it Katrina? One of the coven, fleeing the flames?

He holstered his gun and dropped to his knees, where the smoke was less onerous. He crawled toward the cauldron. Its white light shone like a beacon through the thick haze. More pounding of footsteps up the stairs.

Smoke filled his lungs. He coughed.

"Katrina!"

"I'm here," she said weakly. "The cauldron."

He crawled closer, into the cauldron's light, and saw Katrina on the other side of it.

"We must get the cauldron out," she choked, barely a wheeze. "Don't touch it. It would burn you. My magic … protects me."

"The others?"

"Fled."

"Stay close. Follow me."

Remembering the layout of the room, he guided Katrina to the stairs. Both of them crawled. Even then, the smoke and heat were becoming intolerable.

"Ichabod …"

"We're almost there."

"I can't."

He looked back in time to see her collapse onto the carpet, the cauldron cradled in her arms. Its pulsating light shone across her slack face. For a moment, Ichabod saw Katrina's features mingled with Abbie's. An effect of the smoke and his own oxygen deprivation, he was sure, but there they were. The two most important people in his life. Remarkable women, both of them. He'd be damned if their journey ended in such an unremarkable place.

He slid his arms under her shoulders and knees. With a groan, he stood. She wasn't heavy, but she was a dead weight. His muscles trembled and his head swam as he took the first step, then the next. It seemed miles to the top. He was certain the staircase had not been this long on his way down.

Finally, he emerged into the kitchen, staggered through the living room and out the front door.

Cool, fresh air brushed his face. He fell to his knees, gasping.

Sirens peeled in the distance, while smoke poured from the open door of the house.

There was no sign of the coven.

Ichabod lay his burden down in the cool grass. She was still unconscious but clutched the glowing cauldron in her arms. They had escaped the smoke. She should be reviving now. Why wasn't she waking up?

"Katrina, open your eyes," he said.

No change. He brushed her hair from her face and tried another way.

"Abbie?" he said softly, tentatively. "Abbie, can you hear me where you are? You cannot leave me. Not like this. You must fight."

Her eyelids fluttered and opened.

He felt a surge of relief.

"The cauldron?" she asked.

It was Katrina.

"You're holding it."

"We must release the light."

"We will. Right now you must rest."

He leaned in to kiss her, but her lips were unmoving under his. She had already fallen back into unconsciousness in his arms.

#


	7. Chapter 7

**Story:** Possession, Chapter 7  
**Author:** Jennifer Campbell  
**Fandom:** Sleepy Hollow  
**Disclaimer:** None of the characters belong to me.  
**Author notes:** Thank you so much for the reviews and follows. I have appreciated every one of them.

##

Stars.

Thousands of them. They shone like jewels over high treetops that swayed in a night breeze, except for a few that were fading in the subtle predawn light in the east. Ichabod gazed at them through the cabin window. Never again would he take the stars and moon for granted, not after the city had almost lost them forever.

He dropped the curtain. It fell back into place across the glass as he turned to face Katrina. She sat cross-legged and straight-backed on the living room floor with the dark, empty cauldron in front of her. Soot from the fire stained her gray T-shirt. Remnants of salt from earlier that night dusted the carpet.

Had it been only a few hours ago that Abbie had read the words that had caused her spirit to exchange places with Katrina's? It seemed days ago. And how had Abbie fared in Purgatory, at the mercy of the very demon they were trying to defeat?

"The darkness has gone," he said, weariness weighing heavily in his bones.

Katrina nodded. If Ichabod felt merely weary, she must be ten times more. The fire brigade that had arrived to extinguish the inferno had also revived her with their medical expertise. They had wanted to send her to a hospital, but Ichabod had managed to convince Captain Irving (who had also arrived at the scene) of the folly of that plan.

"So you're saying," Irving had said skeptically when Ichabod explained, "that Lieutenant Mills is _not_ Lieutenant Mills? That she's really your wife, who has been dead for more than two centuries and also happens to be a witch?"

"Yes."

"And the two of you need to cast some spell on that Halloween decoration over there to fix" — he waved vaguely at the sky — "whatever this is."

"That is correct."

Irving gave a long-suffering sigh. "Fine. Get out of here and take your glowing pot with you. But you tell Lieutenant Mills that when she is back in her own body, I expect her to report in for a full medical exam." He eyed Ichabod's ash-covered coat and face. "And you, too, while you're at it."

"Of course, Captain."

Ichabod went to sit beside Katrina on the carpet. She leaned against him and laid her head — Abbie's head — on his shoulder. She felt perfect there, though he did not know whether Katrina made him feel that way or Abbie. Or both.

"I'm so tired," she said.

"Are you well?"

"Well enough. Though your partner might not thank me for how poorly I have treated her body. I had forgotten how fragile this flesh and blood is."

He put his arm around her. "I will redouble my efforts to find you. I won't rest until I have returned you to life in your own body. I promise."

"Promise me something else."

"What is it?"

"That you won't forget what I said."

He winced. "If you are referring to Miss Mills, I —"

She silenced him with a finger on his lips. "You will do whatever you feel is the right thing. Only know that however you choose, you have my blessing."

"The blessing of a witch," he mused.

"Yes. Now fetch the salt. We have left your partner in Purgatory for long enough."

Ichabod agreed wholeheartedly with that, though regaining Abbie meant losing Katrina. Yet if they managed to free Katrina from Moloch's clutches and resurrected her, here in this time, what then? He would have them both. He would have to choose.

An impossible choice.

But that was not today.

He showed Katrina how to open the container's spout, and she poured out a circle of salt on the carpet over the remnants of the one he and Abbie had made. She positioned herself in the center.

"Do you need the words of the spell?" Ichabod asked. "I wrote them down."

"No, my love. Though I am glad you found my book."

"_Your_ book?" he asked. "Strange, I have never seen it before." Though perhaps that was not so strange, seeing as Katrina had hid from him her involvement in the occult. "You should know it is quite safe in a vault beneath the city and in the care of a very protective librarian."

"I'm sure you will need it again." She blew him a kiss. "I won't say goodbye. There are no goodbyes with us. Only until next time."

A pain stabbed at Ichabod's chest. Who knew when the next time would be. "Until next time," he said. "Give Moloch my regards."

She closed her eyes and began the spell, speaking the words in Latin. When the fierce wind rose up, this time Ichabod was ready. He braced his feet and held tight to the back of a chair. Their eyes met across the barrier of salt, and he thought her lips might have formed the words "I love you," but the wind whipped them away from his ears.

Her knees buckled and her eyes rolled up in her head. She collapsed into a heap.

When the wind died, Ichabod rushed forward to kneel beside her, as he had before, and lifted her head onto his knees.

"Miss Mills?"

He brushed the hair from her face. She looked so peaceful and relaxed.

Then the peace shattered as her eyes shot open wide. Not with fear, as Ichabod had anticipated, but with a fierce glint akin to battle rage. She scrambled to her feet, but her knees folded. She would have fallen if Ichabod and not caught her and eased her down.

"Careful," he said. "You're safe. You're back in the cabin. You're safe."

She relaxed into his arms. "Crane?"

"Yes."

"For real? You're not a trick?"

He frowned. What had happened to her to make her think he was an illusion? "I am here, Miss Mills."

She lay on the floor and took deep, gulping breaths. "My chest hurts."

"We were in a fire, or rather Katrina and I were. But all is well, at least for tonight. The darkness is defeated." He helped her sit up. She looked at him, still wild-eyed. "Are you all right?"

"I was in Purgatory."

"I know."

"Moloch was there. And an ax." Her looked past him, her gaze growing distant. "I don't know where it came from, but I found an ax, and he was scared of it. Like, scared _shitless_. He ran from it, and I chased him. I was chasing him through the forest, and then I was here."

Ichabod tried to follow her. She was talking frantically, as if she were relating a dream that she feared she would forget if she did not say it fast enough.

"Was it the Horseman's ax?" he asked in an attempt to help her focus.

Her mouth and eyes tightened with concentration. "No. I don't think so. We have to find it, Crane. It has to be real. It'll help us."

She would have said more, if her mouth had not opened into a large yawn.

"We will find it," he assured her. "But right now, you need to rest. You have been through much, it seems, and so has your body. Your captain was not happy when I would not let him pack you off to a hospital."

"I am tired," she agreed.

"Let me help you to bed."

She leaned heavily against him while he assisted her to her feet. He enjoyed the way her body fit against his, and she showed no inclination to move away from him, as they walked to the bedroom. Once there, he turned down the blankets and sheets. Abbie laid down, her eyelids fluttering closed.

"The pillow smells like you," she said.

He sat beside her, hands in his lap.

"Miss Mills, before you sleep, there is something I wish to tell you."

"Yeah?"

"It is about us."

"Us?" she repeated sleepily.

"Yes. We have always been honest with each other, but there is something I have not shared with you. I believe it would be dishonorable of me to keep it from you any longer." He paused to give her the opportunity to respond. When she didn't, he said, "Miss Mills? Abbie?"

Nothing.

She had fallen asleep.

"It is just as well," Ichabod murmured.

He walked around to the other side of the bed, removed his boots, and laid down atop the covers. He should not, strictly speaking, share a bed with with any woman other than his wife. But they were both clothed, and the bed was large enough that they would not accidentally touch in their sleep. Besides, he was too tired to make up another place to rest.

As he began to drift, he had one more thought, and said, "I am very sorry about your vehicle."

Abbie blinked back to awareness. "My what? Did something happen to my SUV?"

Ichabod's answer was a soft snore.

She sighed.

Whatever he had meant, it would wait for tomorrow. She scooted closer to him and curled up against his side. In his sleep, his arm went around her.

Abbie smiled and closed her eyes.

##

The end. Thank you for reading!


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